Aluminium

Did you know that most of your aluminium recycling is made up of drink cans? Drink cans are the only type of aluminium you can put into your recycling bin. Other types of aluminium can be recycled as well- but you must take this to a special recycling yard. Some other things that are made out of aluminium are window frames or engine parts. Putting these things in your bin may cause a lot of damage at the Materials Recovery Facility.

It takes half a soft drink can of oil to produce just one aluminium can!! It takes the same amount of energy to recycle twenty aluminium cans as it does to create one new one. By recycling we are minimising the amount of mining and extraction of raw materials in both Australia and around the world.

Your aluminium cans are collected with your recycling and taken to the VISY Materials Recovery Facility at Smithfield. Here they are sorted from the rest of your recycling. Aluminium is not magnetic so it needs to be hand selected from the recycling. The cans are then crushed and baled and sent to a reprocessing plant in Sydney. The most common form of contamination is the plastic straw. Many people forget to take them out and put them in the rubbish bin. Any form of contamination in your recycling reduces its quality.

The aluminium is melted down and formed into ingots. These ingots are distributed to aluminium manufacturers. Fortunately aluminium can be re-melted over and over again with no loss of quality.

Lots of things can be made from your recycled aluminium cans- kitchen utensils, furniture, building materials, tools and lots and lots of new aluminium cans.